Tower 12 where art thou?

P

pmik

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Mar 10, 2004
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Location
South Africa.
I have been using Tower 12 (I guess it's Council Mineral Tech, I'm in Craigavon) for a while, but since Saturday I have not been able to connect to it at all. I have 4 lights with the following being reported by the broadband dialler:

Signal strength: 17%
Frequency: 2506000kHz
Base station: 12
RSCP: -89dB
ISCP: -97dB

Which looks fairly good to me, but I constantly get 'the remote computer did not respond' when I try connect.

I am able to connect at the office to tower 102 (Sentech Fourways), but I didn't buy it to use at work!

Is anyone else using this tower 12 atm?
Can anyone help?

Thanks.
 
Alo pmik,

Just a few quick questions:

1) Are these signal readings similar to what you had before saturday ?
2) What distance are you from the tower ?

From what I've seen when I could use Tower 12 is that for some strange reason my modem would be able to pick up 2530000 and 2506000 Khz but only connect to the 2530000 one.. Possibly you have the same problem and need to get the modem to switch to the correct fequency....

R
 
Hi regardtv,

I'm not sure how far I am from the tower as I don't know exactly where the tower is situated. Do you know where it is?

I could connect previously with these readings, in fact, I could connect at the other side of the house too, with much worse readings (10% signal). I'm sure if the frequency was the same tho, never paid much attention to it really.

How do I get the modem to switch frequency? I tried messing with the frequency list in operator.ini, but it didn't seem to do anything.

Later
 
Hello,

Yes tower 12 is the Mintek tower - don't have GPS co-ords for it... as an estimate, how far are you from the Randburg Virgin Active ?

Frequency switching is automatica ie... no manual switching supported....you need to turn off the unit and back on again.

R
 
As a rough guess I'm around 5km from Randburg Virgin Active. Will check more accurately later.

You say "Frequency switching is automatica ie... no manual switching supported....you need to turn off the unit and back on again."

But how do I specify the frequency? In operator.ini?

So, is this correct: I edit operator.ini to remove the frequency it is currently trying to use, then turn off the modem, and then back on again?

Thanks!
 
Taking a closer look, it seems to be more than 5km (maybe 7)..
Fourways is much closer tho, but I don't pick up the Fourways Tower at all. [:(]
 
Hello Pmik,

After the adjustments to Tower12 I SERIOUSLY doubt you'll connect to it if you're more than 5km away. Your best/only hope would be Tower22 and Tower102.

I have just heard that there is some firmware floating around that lets one lock the modem to a specific tower and frequency... Going to hunt for that - not that I think it would help either of us.

If you're still early enough in your contract I'd suggest you either cancel or suspend it....


R
 
regardtv - I hear you, but if it's so far away then why the hell do I get 17% signal? And why does the zone locator say 'Partial'?
 
Hehehe,

The curse of bouncing signals ;-)

It may be that you're picking up signal that's been bounced around a bit.

If you look around on the threads you'll see a post by the Wise Old TheRodent [8D] discussing how the technology works.

Basically if it's a bounced signal or you're too far away and you're trying to send data back it may get to the tower after your available slot has "expired" ... so you cannot connect no matter how skilled a contorsionist you are [:(]

Try finding out where Tower22/102 are in relation to you....

Otherwise you'll have to wait until the next phase is announced... whenever that may be [:(!][V][:(!][V]

R
 
I now connect to Tower 12 and since last nght it seems to be fine. I sit with the problem that I cannot connect to Tower 82 (Honeydew just down the road or Randburg Metro) from Sundowner - but I think I get the signal from 82 being Randburg Metro. From my roof, I can see the Red water tower "Looks a bit like a funnel) but when I point at it, I get 82. Randburg Metro is in a straight line right behind Mintek and I get Tower 82 with 35% signal (12 only with 8 - 12%) but the signal seems ok now.

I suggest get a Notebook, climb onto the roof and wiggle just a bit...after every adjustment, switch your modem off, and check the software to see which tower you are locked onto. You may loose it every now and then which would need a repeat of the process :-( I keep my ladder in the lounge permanently.

Good luck, I hope it works. PS - the operator.ini is not the only adjustment - do the registry too (search for IP Wireless) but make a backup of the registry first OK.
 
Reminiscent of Douglas Adams 'Ravenous Bugblatter beast of Traal' - a mindbogglingly stupid beast who thinks that if you cannot see it, it cannot see you... but very, very ravenous.

Short explanation, you can see all the signal you want, if the tower can't see your return signal, no, connection....

The problem with computers, is that they do not do what we want them to do, they do what we tell them to do.
 
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